


Deliverance

by Fudgyokra



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Blow Jobs, Drama, Enemies With Benefits, First Time Blow Jobs, Hate Sex, Hurt, I mean it's not PORN exactly, Is Identity Crisis a Tag, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Violence, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Psychological Drama, Public Blow Jobs, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Some Humor, but mostly hate, but......, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 17:16:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10835754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: Bruce took a minute to collect his thoughts. "Do you want to know who the Batman is?"





	Deliverance

**Author's Note:**

> This has no discernible plot, but that's because it was written only as an excuse to practice my characterization of Nolan's Batman and Joker.
> 
> Oh, and to write a gratuitous blowjob scene. That, too.
> 
> While I Wrote:  
> Get Down, Make Love – Nine Inch Nails  
> User Friendly – Marilyn Manson  
> Harder to Breathe – Maroon 5  
> A Girl Like You* – Edwyn Collins  
> Teddy Bear – Melanie Martinez  
> Never Gonna Stop – Rob Zombie  
> Up All Night – Hinder  
> Madness – Muse  
> Mudshovel – Staind  
> Sick and Twisted Affairs – My Darkest Days
> 
> And, like last time, others that don't matter as much.  
> *Lyrics used at beginning of fic.

 

_You’ve made me acknowledge the devil in me_

_I hope to God I’m talkin’ metaphorically_

_Hope that I’m talkin’ allegorically_

_Know that I’m talkin’ about the way I feel_

* * *

 

“I almost gave up.”

Bruce leaned against the padded, white wall. At a table, some feet away, sat Joker, looking up at him from under long lashes with a peculiar expression on his face. “Do explain,” the man said, leaning his elbows on the table and licking his lips. “You can’t just waltz into my house,” he started, gesturing around the cell with one hand, “and open with that. It’s just not a very good pickup line, is all I’m saying.”

With a large measure of restraint, Bruce did not scowl. “You got me close to surrendering the mask. Letting the world know who I am.”

Joker looked at him unflinchingly, then, after a second, raised his brows. “Is that it?”

This time, Bruce steeled himself with a deep inhalation. He waved a hand at the mediating guard. “Leave us,” he commanded. The guard, perturbed, appeared to be having an internal battle between following his boss’s orders or the ones just given to him by the imposing Batman. When Bruce repeated himself, slower, the man made his decision and started to walk out, only to be stopped by Joker’s loud shouting.

“Don’t leave me in here with this madman!” he exclaimed, grabbing his own throat and making a dramatized choking sound. “Who knows what he’ll do to me!”

The guard uneasily cast a sidelong glance at Bruce, who squinted back. Even without words, the look was understood.

“Fuh—uh, five minutes,” the guard stammered, seeing himself out of the cell and locking the door behind him with the heavy thunk of a large key.

“Joker,” Bruce began seriously, “I want to know why.”

“Why, why, why…” Joker tapped his chin and shook his hair out. “Let me see, I _think_ it was to fuck with you.”

Despite himself, Bruce took a step closer. “It’s been a year since all that. Since Rachel, since…”

“Dent,” Joker supplied with a sharp grin.

“Since Dent,” Bruce said through gritted teeth. “I came in here unwilling to compromise, but it looks like Commissioner Gordon has other ideas about your sentence here at Arkham.”

Joker did not look surprised. “So you want me to prove to you that I can do some good around this awful town,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Okay, listen.” He stood up from his chair, and Bruce retraced his previous step. “Now, don’t be scared, angel,” he told him, smacking his lips obnoxiously. “What I wanna know is…why I should help you. If I remember correctly, Gotham doesn’t like either of us very much right now.”

“That’s the problem,” Bruce said, following Joker’s movements with narrowed eyes. “Gordon wants you to talk. He’s giving you a second chance.”

“But is the high and mighty Batman?” Joker asked in mock innocence, putting a hand to his chest.

After a long deliberation, Bruce muttered, “I’m considering. For Gordon’s sake.”

“Gordon’s an idiot,” Joker said flippantly. He threw his hands up to drive his point home. “I don’t give a shit about Gordon. I wanna know why the _Bat_ has come knocking at this hour of the night… You know, I could have been getting my beauty sleep.”

Slowly, cautiously, Bruce stepped forward again. “I have a question,” he admitted. This time, Joker had the decency to look properly surprised.

“Oh, really? For little ol’ me? What might that be, darling?”

“Do you care who the Batman is?”

Joker blinked, squinted, and looked around in succession. “Is this one of those practical joke shows or what?” At that, he laughed, high and shrill. “Come on, Batcakes, level with me here. I really do want to know why you had to ask.”

Bruce took a minute to collect his thoughts. “Do you want to know who the Batman is?”

Again, Joker laughed, this time until he was practically gasping for air. “Do I…? What do you take me for?”

“I’m serious.”

“Well, that’s no fun!” Joker clapped his hands together.

To make his point, Bruce reached for the back of his cowl.

“Woah! Woah, woah, woah—hold on, now.” Joker held up one hand, fingers splayed. He blinked wide eyes, then, with a slowly-curling smile, he said, “I expect flowers before we start undressing.”

Irritated, Bruce approached him with one long, fluid stride. “I need to know,” he said, grabbing his collar and hissing his words directly into the other’s face, “why you didn’t kill me.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Joker smiled at him. “You’re just too much fun!”

Bruce let go of him. “You really are just insane.”

“Thank you,” Joker replied, dipping his head, “but flattery gets you nowhere. I know why you’re really here, and I think it’s quite funny… To look for answers—to look for _reason_ in a madman’s tomb.”

“I haven’t slept,” he admitted, his eyes burning holes into Joker’s. “Nothing you’ve done makes any sense.”

“Let’s see… Daddy neglected me, mommy was unfaithful, what else is there to tell?” He smiled, one side of his mouth raised higher than the other. “Maybe I just need a little attention.”

“You’ve got it,” Bruce said gruffly. “Now, I—”

Before he could get the words out, the cell door opened again. The next few seconds were a blur; Joker launched himself at the guard and knocked him to the floor in a screaming heap.

Alarmed, Bruce yanked Joker off and held him until he went slack.

“I’m—I am so sorry,” the latter said with a chuckle. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Annoyed, Bruce shoved the man into the guard’s shaky, waiting arms, and by the time backup arrived, the Batman had disappeared.

//

The night after this occurrence, the Joker found him on the streets. He stood some feet away, bathed in the light of the streetlamp, spinning his cell key around his index finger and grinning as wickedly as ever.

Bruce didn’t have to ask how he’d gotten the key, but Joker supplied, anyway. “Snatched it when I jumped on our little friend yesterday. _Boy_ ,” he started, cracking his neck casually, “guards there aren’t too bright. One itsy-bitsy little Batman comes in and they suddenly don’t know how to guard a clown.”

Bruce scowled. “I’m not the reason you’re out here.”

“Of course you are. Tell me, why _else_ would I be standing here right now?” Joker held up a finger and wagged it back and forth in a tick-tock motion, taunting in the face of Bruce’s steaming silence. “Right,” he said at length, bobbing his head in a lazy nod. “Now… See, now, we’re even. We’re both free in the middle of the night—free as bats.”

“Your point?” Bruce asked. He was beginning to feel a sense of dread coming on.

“Let’s entertain the, uh, the idea that I _already_ know who the Batman is,” Joker said, dodging forth in his ambling manner of speech like he was setting up a scenario for a play. “And I happen to know that he’s a very simple guy, with very simple, ah…pleasures.”

The tingling dread began to feel like a freezing rock beneath his ribs. “What are you saying?”

“Let me finish.” Joker looked this way and that, as if waiting for someone else to interrupt him. Finally, when he seemed satisfied enough, he continued. “Maybe I also happen to know every step Gordon takes because I bugged his apartment or _rr_ something.” He flapped a gloved hand noncommittally at Bruce’s growl. “And so I know he didn’t breathe a word about giving me a second chance, meaning that…”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Say it.”

“Meaning that you wanted me here. So…here I am.” Joker opened his arms in a grandiose gesture and tossed his hair back. “Eat it up, Bats.”

“If you can bug Gordon, if you can escape from Arkham…” Bruce said, ignoring the insistent twitch in his lip, “what’s stopping you from unmasking me?”

With a venomous smile and a dark hiss, Joker answered exactly the way Bruce had come to expect from him: “Because I like a man who puts up a _fight_.”

Bruce’s hand lashed out to grab the other man’s neck. “Be careful what you wish for,” he snarled, just before throwing him to the ground.

Joker collapsed in an ungraceful heap and regarded Bruce with half-lidded eyes. “Is Daddy gonna get the belt?” he taunted, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

Even though he was falling for every little piece of Joker’s plot, something about the way his knuckles collided with the man’s jaw made it worth it. He sat atop him for a second, debating whether or not to hit him again, while Joker seemed to be waiting patiently, staring up at him from where he lay on the asphalt without making a move of his own.

“Fight back,” he grumbled, allowing himself one more punch for gratuity. Joker remained still, looking at him with a steely gaze as though he were studying him.

Bruce had had enough; he lifted Joker by the collar and jammed him back against a streetlamp. “You’re going back to Arkham,” he said, reaching for his utility belt.

Faster than Bruce thought he was capable of moving, Joker twisted out of his grip and made a run for it.

“That’s more like it,” Bruce said, and sprinted after him.

What he hadn’t anticipated was for Joker to stop in the middle of the road, where Bruce effectively crashed into his back, allowing Joker to curl in on himself and flip Bruce right over his shoulder. A kick in the ribs rolled him onto his back, then he straddled him as Bruce had been doing to him just seconds before.

“I’m not very fond of that idea,” Joker said with a laugh, wrapping both of his hands around Bruce’s neck. “So I’ll propose another one.”

Bruce grabbed Joker’s wrists, but when Joker leaned in until the tip of his nose brushed his mask, he froze. “Now, let me tell you something about James Gordon,” he said, sticking his tongue out and wiggling it alarmingly close to Bruce’s mouth. “What I learn, I learn from that little bug of mine, so you can quote me when I say…” He paused and flipped his hair back, then leaned back down and cocked his head. He stared into Bruce’s eyes with a peculiar intensity. “Our man Gordon has a very interesting private life.”

“One night stands?” Bruce ventured, unnerved.

“An awful lot for such a noble lawman,” Joker confirmed, grinning at him like he could see the gears turning in his head. “And not all of them of the female variety.”

“Why do you care?” he asked, lip twitching again. He could see where this was heading.

“I’ve recognized a couple of his…friends…” Joker put his hands on the sides of Bruce’s cowl and tipped his head back, examining him like one would a valuable artifact. “And my suspicions are that you might just be one of them.”

“Bad plan. I’m not.” Bruce always thought himself to be a prolific liar, but the way Joker held his gaze made him make the worst mistake a liar could make: he looked away.

“Ha…ha… _ha_ ,” Joker breathed more than said, a sarcastic not-quite-laugh that drove Bruce nuts. “I knew the Bat and the Commissioner were close, but this is more than I had in mind.”

Bruce bared his teeth. If Joker had seen him in Gordon’s apartment, it really _was_ over. He was one of a handful, and Joker had him pinned.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, unsure of whether he meant currently or in the future. Perhaps both.

Always more of a demonstrator than an explainer, Joker kissed him with a violent sort of hunger, clutching the sides of his face possessively. Bruce couldn’t move. Didn’t move. Wouldn’t.

And then Joker bit him. Hard.

With a pained grunt, Bruce got his hands around Joker’s skinny arms and switched their positions again.

“I never said I was going to play nice,” Joker said, smiling in a way that showed all his teeth. “But I got the job done, didn’t I?”

Bruce touched his bleeding lip and sat up. “I don’t follow,” he muttered, unamused with the man’s game.

“You wouldn’t,” Joker said, before abruptly elbowing Bruce in the abdomen, a move that sent him backward just far enough for Joker to hop up and dump him onto his back on the asphalt, leaving the clown with the perfect escape route.

From the ground, Bruce steeled himself with a careful breath. He did not run after him.

//

It had been a week, and there was still no sign of Joker anywhere in Gotham.

With the same amount of disinterest that he usually put forth and then some, Bruce found himself in the middle of another social gathering, populated with erudites, socialites, and other -ites he was loath to be a part of. Still, Alfred, as usual, had to insist that he attend.

Every time he turned around, paranoia gnawed at him. This did little to make any of his conversations inviting despite his best attempt to socialize, so he resigned himself to the bar in a drained state.

As he approached, he could see that he hadn’t been the only one with this idea; there was a blonde in a red cocktail dress, her legs crossed and her white-gloved fingers curled around the stem of a champagne flute. Beside her left elbow, there was an open bottle of Dom Perignon, one of the few alcoholic beverages Bruce indulged in when at public events. She was tapping the nails of her free hand on the countertop, as though she were bored. Or antsy.

He was no stranger to volatile women, but he felt better chancing this one than any of the other squinting, judgmental people that tried painfully hard to butter him up. This, unfortunately, included Gordon, whom he did his best to avoid.

Opening with a courteous, “Hello, ma’am,” he got comfortable on the barstool next to her and draped his arm across the counter. “Isn’t it a little early to be halfway through a bottle of champagne?” His smile was appropriately teasing.

When she turned to look at him, Bruce felt the heavy gaze of dark brown eyes hit him with a force like a bullet. He hoped his face didn’t feel as pale as it felt.

“Well, well, well,” the Joker—sans makeup, sans hair dye, sans _Jokerness_ —began, swiveling his stool so he could face him fully. “I planned to share with the best-looking person here.” He leaned his elbow on his knee and put his chin in his hand. “But I didn’t realize there would be this much competition.” The wink he gave was suggestive.

Bruce tried not to look like a deer in headlights. “Right. What was your name again? You look awfully familiar.”

“Call me Jay,” he said, flipping his hair back. It was a wildly different gesture with the blond waves he wore, but Bruce could not afford to stare.

“Nice dress,” he said flatly. “Didn’t think they made ‘em in men’s sizes.”

Joker rolled his eyes. “Hardy-har-har, you are…quite the charmer, Mister Wayne.” The sarcasm wasn’t exactly biting, but he smirked nonetheless. “Might as well drink with me, since you’re here.”

“I have a better idea. Come with me.” Bruce jerked his chin in the direction of the elevators and watched a predatory smile curl the other man’s lips.

“That’s awfully forward of you.”

“It’s not gonna be what you think,” Bruce assured him, offering a tight-lipped smile of his own.

“I sure hope it is,” Joker replied, sliding off the barstool and putting a finger thoughtfully to his lips. “But wait,” he pretended to ponder, “won’t people notice if billionaire Bruce Wayne slips away into the night?”

“It’s not unlike me,” Bruce answered quickly, grabbing Joker’s hand and pulling him toward the elevator. “They won’t even notice.”

“That you’re leaving with a man in a dress?” Joker asked, laughing to himself as the elevator doors slid closed in front of them.

“People are free to be as they are in Gotham,” Bruce told him, mouth a line. “I’m sure no one will say anything.”

“You’re just a bundle of joy, aren’t you?”

“I know that you’re the Joker,” he said bluntly. “The clown from the TV.”

“Was it my charm that gave it away?” Joker laughed in a way that made his nose crinkle. Bruce looked away.

“What do you want from me? Money? I don’t want you prowling around here. I don’t know what you hope to—”

“Brucey, baby,” Joker interrupted, grabbing the other’s chin with a gloved hand and drawing his face in close. “I’m just here to have fun. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Very,” he replied, without missing a beat. He looked into the man’s eyes and saw a wild spark in them. Alarmed, he pushed his hand away.

“What happened to your lip?” Joker asked, wicked smile back in place.

Bruce balled his fists. He knew. He _knew_.

“How did you find me?” he asked, voice hostile.

“Vintage Moet Chandon Dom Perignon,” Joker answered, grabbing Bruce’s tie and yanking him closer. “You never forget a taste like that, even past all the blood.”

Bruce slammed him against the elevator wall. “Haven’t had any,” he said lowly.

“You sure had it the night we…” Joker hummed facetiously and twirled his finger in the air in a vague gesture.

Bruce narrowed his eyes, annoyed. “How could I forget?”

“I’d be offended if you did.” Joker’s laugh was like a grating caw, and Bruce was very, very close to shutting him up with force.

“What does what I drink have to do with anything?”

“Only one sort of crowd can afford luxuries like that, darling. That pricey bottle and a pretty pair of legs was all it took to get Mister Wayne to come calling. Though, it _was_ pretty lucky I ran into you so quickly. Or, well,” Joker laughed again, and this time it came out like a hysterical wheeze, “You ran into _me_. You know, while you were on the hunt, or _rrr_ whatever it is socialite billionaires do at swanky parties like this.”

“Shut up,” Bruce said, flicking his eyes toward the elevator doors as they opened on the top floor, “and come on.”

Joker walked in front. Shrouded in androgynous mystery, wrapped up in a cocktail dress, perfectly quaint and civil and confident. Bruce wasn’t sure where to aim his gaze.

“Where are we going, babe?” the Joker asked, as if sensing the static in the air. Bruce felt like maybe he was swishing his hips purposefully now. “I don’t really got all night.”

“I’m sure you have very pressing matters to deal with,” Bruce mumbled.

“I have a matter that’s pressing, all right.” Joker cackled, making the other glance over his shoulder with a measure of paranoia.

They reached the end of the hall, which boasted a sliding glass door that led onto a balcony overlooking the city. Bruce opened the door and said nothing.

“Not gonna push me off, are ya?” Joker teased.

“I’m considering,” Bruce lied.

Joker’s eyelids fluttered, betraying his lack of amusement. “Leave the jokes to me, cupcake.”

They headed out into the chilly night, Bruce standing with his back against the door and Joker against the railing, facing away from him and staring out into the starless sky.

For the longest time, Bruce had to consider his words: a feat that he wasn’t very good at to begin with, made harder by the way the other prattled on about nothing in the background of his thoughts.

He started with a question he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer to. “Why are you doing this?”

Joker replied, predictably, with a smacking noise, followed by, “Doing what?”

“Why are you following me?”

“Who wouldn’t wanna follow you? Look at you.” Joker wolf-whistled and grinned at him in quick succession before turning away again. “Am I right, ladies and gentleman?” he yelled out over the city, extending his arms at his sides like he was basking in an imaginary audience’s attention. “Hot stuff, huh?”

“What are you going to do now that you know who I am?” Bruce continued.

“Ah _h_. Now there’s the golden question.” Bruce watched as Joker turned, hoisted himself up onto the railing, and crossed his legs at the knee, seemingly unfazed by the aspect of danger that came with dangling over the edge of a building; of course, he _had_ done it plenty of times before. “And the answer to that, is, well, nothing.”

Silence.

Joker smacked his lips again. “You heard that right, doll. I’m not gonna do anything. Without you, there’s no me.” He squinted thoughtfully and rubbed his chin. “Not quite as fun that way, is it?”

Bruce’s brows lowered over his eyes enough to make him appear threatening, but still, Joker did not change the story. After an annoying exchange that got them nowhere, Bruce finally caved and took his word for it. “Okay, so even if I am to believe my identity is safe with you…”

“Which it is,” Joker supplied, unhelpfully.

“Why did you care in the first place?”

“Curiosity killed the bat,” said Joker, hissing the _s_ in ‘curiosity,’ “but satisfaction brought it back.”

“I don’t think that’s how that one goes,” Bruce said, betraying himself by smirking. “You must be fond of bats.”

“ _Now_ you’re getting to be fun.” Joker hopped off the railing and approached him, triggering his fight-or-flight response on impetus. “Calm down, Bat-brain. I’m not here to mug you.”

“Then why?”

“I’m here to watch you crumble.” Joker’s smile was deceptively sweet as he spun delicately on his heel and fluffed his hair.

Bruce got a weird feeling in his stomach. “How do you suppose that’s going to happen?”

“Oh, honey,” the other said, clicking his tongue. He stretched skinny, pale arms skyward and rolled his head on his shoulders, not a care in the world. “It’s already happened.”

Bruce frowned. He grabbed Joker’s arm and spun him around to face him again. “What does that mean?” he demanded, sliding his hand down to grip the other man’s wrist.

“Hey now, be gentle. It’s my first time with a billionaire.” Joker quirked his eyebrows and Bruce jerked his hand away.

“Listen to me,” he started, voice gravelly.

“I’m all ears, Mister Wayne.” His voice was an obnoxious purr; Bruce was losing his patience.

“You think you can take me down like this? With mind games?” He put a hand on Joker’s chest and shoved him backward into the railing. White-gloved hands flew up and clutched the metal on either side of him before coming up to clutch Bruce’s shoulders.

“Mind games? Oh, no, no, _no_. Who would do such a thing?”

“ _You_ ,” Bruce answered, voice wrought with vitriol and something else, something of a different denomination. Something he didn’t want to put a name to.

“I would never,” Joker said defensively, just as he gingerly dragged the pointed tip of his heeled shoe up Bruce’s pant leg. Before the man could react, the leg was already securely hitched on his hip, pressing them pelvis-to-pelvis while Joker dipped his upper body over the rail again. “Go ahead, Bruce. We could both go down. It would be a suicide pact, no blood on your hands but your own. Taking me with you would just be…collateral damage.”

“No,” Bruce said starkly, reaching past the man to white-knuckle the rail. Seconds later, he felt the satin of opera gloves atop his hands, fingers curling gently against the side of his palm.

“Think about it,” Joker said, licking his lips hungrily. “Really, _think_ about it.”

“I have,” Bruce said through gritted teeth.

Joker was using the railing—and Bruce’s hands—as leverage to lift his other leg onto Bruce’s hip. “You’ve got me, and you can do whatever you want with me.”

“Joker,” he said, voice a warning.

“You know, throw me over the edge.” Joker smirked. “Now what were _you_ thinking?”

It took Bruce a grueling moment of self-reflection to realize that Joker was right—he already had crumbled. The fact that this was happening at all, that they were here right now, like this, meant that Joker knew something he shouldn’t. And he mirrored it right back, in a skimpy cocktail dress and blown pupils, his own life in Bruce’s hands like it was nothing.

He knew Bruce would never cross that line. He knew Bruce hated that he wouldn’t.

Now, there was this, only this. Joker had delivered him into a life of hypocrisy—of flirting with the devil. There was no turning back from this moment, but there was no getting rid of the clown, either.

When Bruce kissed him, aggressive and frustrated, Joker was not surprised.

“They always do come crawling to me,” he taunted, jabbing Bruce right where it hurt.

Anything he could have said in response paled in comparison to the ferocity of mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue, heated and angry and hateful. That, and the satisfaction of getting Joker back for the busted lip he’d gifted him a week prior.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Joker muttered against his lips, smearing blood across them and deepening the kiss like the taste of copper wasn’t steadily invading. That, or he enjoyed it. Bruce did not want to guess which.

“Wasn’t trying to be,” Bruce retaliated, breaking away to lower his mouth to the other man’s neck.

A breeze circled around them, reminding him of exactly where they were. Beneath the balcony, the city lights glittered, making the whole affair seem alarmingly normal. This could have been Selina, or Jim, or _Rachel_ , but it wasn’t, and Bruce despised the thrill it gave him to know that. This wasn’t just another way to run from emotional attachment, but something far worse: it was diving headfirst into the fire.

Joker interrupted his train of thought by hooking his arms around Bruce’s neck. “Are we doing this or what, Bat? A guy can only hold his own weight for so long.”

“A guy like _you_ , maybe,” Bruce said, surprising himself with the humor in his voice. This was _Joker_. Right. Now was not the time to be funny.

“Aha,” was all the man in question offered in that vein. He instead switched gears to the more pressing concerns. Literally and figuratively. “If you’re done _courting_ …” Letting the obvious conclusion hang in the air might have been worse than saying it aloud, because it really drove home the fact that Bruce was carrying a dolled-up madman through a (blessedly empty) hotel hallway.

Quickly, he ducked into the stairwell and kicked the door closed. “I’m not suggesting we take it slow,” he said, trying hard to ignore the creeping feeling of shame, “considering we’re in public.”

“Oh, I _know_ ,” Joker said as he lowered himself back onto his feet so he could stand on his own again. Pointedly, he grinned. “Isn’t that half the fun?”

“Arguable,” Bruce said gruffly, watching with half-lidded eyes as the person that he so vehemently loathed sank to his knees in front of him. For a moment, he had to avert his gaze to the ceiling to collect himself.

He knew that this was wrong on many levels and that the consequences were dire, but Bruce was mortal, despite what he might insist, and the Joker’s mouth was hot on the front of his boxers, hands yanking insistently at his pants like madmen on a mission.

It was both surreal and mundane all at once; Joker was only a man in front of him. Just a tall, skinny blonde with a pointed nose and deep brown eyes. Despite this, Bruce could see him as he usually was, with his twisted smile and red mouth, an image that kept sending his thoughts pinging back and forth between _what the hell are you doing_ and _why not just do it, since you’re here?_

It was with burning resentment that he allowed Joker to do anything—even to live, in fact. But right now, at this instant, he looked too beautifully mythological for Bruce to give a damn.

A thought crossed his mind: Lucifer was often depicted as a handsome blonde of considerable ego. He could see the resemblance.

Past the thin veil of sacrilege Bruce had concocted for himself, he could see Joker’s lips forming a perfect ‘o’ around his cock, and suddenly he couldn’t think about anything else but standing there watching the other sucking him off in a dim stairwell. Bruce Wayne at his finest, he thought with a note of disgust.

The event downstairs went on with no one the wiser, and had, in fact, gotten into a jovial-sounding swing of its own, if the new-age techno thumping from the floor was anything to go by. He sincerely hoped the party stayed down there.

Teeth grazed along the base of his shaft, making him jerk. It occurred to him, again, that this really was _not_ the smartest decision he’d ever made. Joker pulled away smiling coyly. “Oopsie,” was all he offered before moving back in.

The back of Bruce’s head made contact with the wall when Joker pinned his hip with one hand, and almost mechanically he thrust forward into the other’s mouth. The wet gagging sound he received brought a brief smile to his face, which he hid by catching the corner of his lip between his teeth.

Joker mumbled something unintelligible around his length, which Bruce ignored. Instead, he grabbed a handful of the other man’s hair and pulled him in, reveling in the gagging noise again as part of his own private satisfaction. “Oops,” he said flatly, risking a glance down at him.

Joker’s pupils were huge and his face was a fairly attractive shade of pink from effort, and suddenly the humor of the situation was gone, blown away by the things that had brought them to this point in the first place: unadulterated lust and honest disdain.

Bruce, unconcerned with niceties, gripped the back of Joker’s neck and held him in close, watching the reflexive tears prick at his eyes. Defiant, the other still held a hard stare and Bruce could tell without words that this was going to become a game of win or lose. Damned if he did, but he would _not_ be the loser of this match.

“Only you could make this into a contest,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He’d let go of Joker’s neck and the man was pulling back to cough, his hand at his throat and a line of saliva dripping from his mouth.

“Aren’t I just darling?” Joker retaliated, rising to his feet and getting cozy in Bruce’s personal space. With a repeat of the steady locked stare they had been engaged in before, he bit the tip of his middle finger and pulled his right glove off with his teeth, letting it drop to the floor so he could place flesh on flesh, jerking him off with an angry sort of intensity that had Bruce gritting his teeth.

He would _not_ lose.

But he already was losing, wasn’t he?

Joker leaned in and nipped at his already-wounded bottom lip before poking his tongue out to taste him, then deepening the kiss. Bruce was frazzled with the slow burn of it, languid and deep and dirty. Nothing like the frustrated contact of their last one.

He _was_ losing. Badly.

His hips jerked forward at the same instant a stripe of hot electricity shot along his spine.

Joker’s obnoxious, horrible laugh of victory was warm against his face. No caliber of scowl he gave could mute the other’s glee as he slicked his gloved hand back over Bruce’s sweaty hair and lifted his other hand up to dangle wet fingers in front of him like a trophy he’d just won.

Bruce let out a slow breath. Joker put his index and middle fingers in his mouth and slid his tongue obscenely between them, then drew them out with a pop. “Tastes like vigilantism,” he said, grin sharp and tone triumphant.

“Hate to end your fun,” Bruce started, wiping his hand over the lower half of his face wearily, “but it’s my turn now.”

There wasn’t a single beat of silence. “Deliver me to nirvana, Mister Wayne.”

Bruce was going to wipe that cheeky smile off the clown’s face if it killed him.

//

No one at the party had noticed them leaving together. In fact, no one noticed him leaving at all, and that was the way Bruce tended to like it. Even if someone _had_ noticed, this was hardly the first time he’d left with a pretty blonde holding a pair of heels, so nothing was out of the ordinary.

Whatever they’d been before was made darker by this encounter, and Bruce realized with a stab of anger that he’d essentially bargained his secret identity away with oral sex. Of course, Joker had known who he was _before_ then, but he knew more about him than almost anyone else in the world—the price of being mental in similar fashions.

They didn’t speak at first as they braved the cold. Hadn’t spoken since Joker’s far-away comment on Bruce being a spitter, and that note was jammed absurdly in his head until he finally had to say something else to get his mind off it. “This isn’t going to be any different,” he avowed. “You run. I chase.”

“No bedside company for you tonight, eh?” Joker said, looking ahead into the night.

In the web of thoughts Bruce had spinning in his head, stupidly, the one he went with was, “I don’t have the emotional capacity for things like that anymore.”

“Ah,” Joker said.

Silence.

He didn’t mention her. Didn’t say a word. Bruce found this suspiciously gratuitous on Joker’s part but did not comment on that and instead continued with, “I suggest running now.”

“Ooh, someone’s being funny tonight.”

“Wasn’t a joke.”

“Already ready to go again? I admire your stamina.” Joker transferred one of his shoes to his left hand and dangled it in Bruce’s direction. “I have a knife in the heel of this thing if you want it. I’m not opposed to a little blood.”

Bruce could tell that this meant he’d lost this round, too. “Tomorrow, then,” he muttered.

“Yeah, uhh, about that…” Joker drawled, finishing this thought off with a characteristic smack of his lips. There was a note of silence, ending with him chuckling to himself. Then, “You’re gonna have to find me, first.”

“Find y—”

In his foolish moment of weakness, Bruce had neglected to see Joker whip his shoe back until it struck him hard in the face, sending him reeling for just long enough to allow him his getaway. When the shaky vision cleared, all that was around him was inky black darkness and a parking lot full of cars. In the distance, he heard Joker’s laugh clawing its way through the sky.

He set his jaw to the side. He _could_ phone in his motorcycle and start the chase tonight. But he wouldn’t.

With a gnawing sensation in his stomach, he reached for his phone and hit the only speed dial option on it. On the second ring, the call connected.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end crackled to life.

“Yeah, Alfred? You can swing up front now. I’m ready to head home.”

“Of course, sir. I hope you enjoyed the evening at least a little bit.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, looking out across the lot to watch the limo pull around and then past it to scan through the trees, “I did not.”

“Same as ever, sir.”

Bruce drew his gaze back from the seemingly empty woods in a state of dim acceptance. “Same as ever,” he agreed.


End file.
